Current Debates in U.S. National Food Politics/Policy

This two-credit, seven-week course will explore a selected set of the most intensely debated topics in food politics/policy as currently practiced in the United States. This is not meant to be a comprehensive study of food systems or even of food policy;
other Wagner and NYU courses provide such an overview. Instead we will investigate in depth several specific policy debates, reviewing the problem, currently-proposed solutions, and the complex politics of policymaking in a separated-powers system.

We will pay particular attention to key institutional actors throughout: these include the influence of lobbying groups (industry and advocacy/nonprofit); the interplay of federal departments and agencies (USDA, HHS, FDA, Executive Office of the
President); the politics of food in the U.S. Congress and judiciary; as well as the role of academic and think-tank experts in shaping political outcomes.